An optimist even in the worst of times, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel is very pessimistic these days. "The world has never been in such danger," he said last week during a visit to Los Angeles. "We are on a train, running toward the abyss. All we can do is pull the alarm to stop it."
A peace activist, graduate of the Sorbonne and survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Wiesel was in town last week for a dinner to honor Rabbi Allen Freehling, who is changing roles from senior rabbi to emeritus at the University Synagogue on the Westside.
Moments after Wiesel arrived here from New York, where he lives with his wife, Marion, he had already spread his notebooks and pens across a desk in his hotel suite. With 30 books promoting peace and tolerance to his credit, including "Night," his 1960 autobiographical novel about life inside Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and with a lecture schedule that could wear down a man half his 73 years, Wiesel is often described as the most important Jew in America.
He is a slight figure, hardly more than 5 feet 5, with delicate features and the gracious manners of the Old World. Born in Romania, he lived in France for many years and still writes his books in French. Even when he is criticizing governments or predicting the eve of destruction, he seems bemused or resigned more often than hardened.
His constant efforts to promote peace and tolerance have not made him a pacifist, a fact that has been especially evident lately. Wiesel supports the current Israeli military campaign, including the recent incursion into the West Bank Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in response to a rash of suicide bombings by Palestinians.
"I don't know if [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's actions were too much or not enough, I'm not a military person," he said. "If he asked me what to do, I would not know what to advise him. I'd have to say, 'Go ahead. Do what you are doing.'" And, he added. "I think what he is doing has made a difference. Since the invasion, there have been fewer suicide killings."
Palestinians who turn themselves into human bombs have gone beyond the rules of war or terrorism, Wiesel said. "Even terrorism has limits. One cannot do certain things and still remain a human being."
Focused, as always, on the larger issues, he worries about the global impact of escalating violence in the Middle East.
